Honor Guard Tradition Fading Away

When honor guard leader Jack Thorpe signals for the bugler to play taps at a military funeral, he expects it to be played as if for an old friend, from the heart and unwavering.

"We owe it to them," said the 63-year-old Berwyn resident, a Korean War veteran. "For many of these (veterans), the military was a big part of their lives. And this is a fitting tribute to an important final chapter."

Thorpe is part of a volunteer honor guard service that travels to funerals throughout the Chicago area, making sure veterans have a proper military burial, complete with flag presentations, rifle volleys and the 24-note, melancholy bugle call taps. Honor guards have a particularly high profile on Memorial Day, when their appearances in parades and tributes serve as a reminder that the holiday associated with summer picnics was founded to honor patriotism.

But it has been more difficult in recent years to field honor guards, what with the dwindling membership in veterans organizations and the closing of military installations--traditionally the sources of manpower when a family requests an honor guard. While the long-standing policy of the military has been to provide the "appropriate tribute," within the constraints of resources, active-duty military honor guards have become rare in practice, particularly in remote places.

People like Thorpe are trying to take up the slack, but it isn't easy--especially at the rate World War II vets are dying.

Growing national concern spurred Congress last year to require the Defense Department to provide an honor guard detail upon the family's request, pending approval of the federal budget. As proposed, that policy will go into effect Jan. 1.

For now, families and funeral directors around the country find themselves dialing up privately run groups to bestow final honors. Yet, even the small, private honor guard services--such as Thorpe's group of veterans, many of whom are over 70 years old--are hard to find.

Paul Miller, of the National Funeral Directors Association--which participated in a yearlong Defense Department study addressing the shrinking pool--said volunteer veterans have been doing their best. Thorpe said it is not uncommon for his group to do as many six to eight funerals a week.

"We had a funeral director. . . who said, `I don't make any more phone calls (in search of honor guards). I just tell the families they're not available because I've been told over and over and over that the resources aren't available,' " Miller said. "And that's what we find all throughout the country."

It used to be that the halls of service organizations, such as the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, overflowed with members who organizers could dispatch to provide honors upon a family's request. Over the last decade, however, membership in many veterans service organizations has shrunk as their most active members, World War II veterans, grow older and stop participating, or die.

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 1,000 World War II veterans are dying daily.

Bob Manhan, assistant legislative director for the VFW in Washington, D.C., said the big problem is for veterans buried in private cemeteries as opposed to veterans cemeteries because many of those national cemeteries still provide the honors.

"What had happened historically is that whenever military honors were requested, active-duty people could usually handle the details" at the veterans cemeteries, Manhan said.

But about the time the Cold War ended, when increasing numbers of families started to request honor-guard services for private ceremonies, very few could get them.

The decline in the number of military bases, which provide active-duty honor guards, also has hurt. In the last decade, more than 80 of the roughly 500 major military installations in the U.S. have closed; 16 more are scheduled to close by 2001.

In addition, said Kelly Smith of the National Funeral Directors Association, honor guards now are being asked to travel long distances to attend services, and sometimes any number of factors can make that difficult.

The new policy to take effect in 2000 only provides for the bare minimum--a two-person team that escorts the family and folds the flag, and the playing of taps, using either a bugler or a high-quality recording.

"We'll still need to have our volunteer groups and use them along with whatever services the active-duty military provides," said Billy Murphy, director of the new 982-acre Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery near Joliet, which is to open in October.

Cantigny VFW Post 367 in Joliet, one of the largest in Illinois, is among those that continue to field a funeral honor guard. Post members plan to participate in a volunteer program to provide honors at Lincoln National Cemetery as well.

"While the prevailing mood of these services is sadness, I can tell you that afterward, those families are very grateful that their loved one was honored by our last tribute," Cantigny post member Dan Campus said.

Information about the Veterans Administration or the National Cemetery Administration is available at 800-827-1000 or the VA home page, www.va.gov. Information about the new federal honors proposal is available at www.defenselink.mil.